their nunciature, and therefore on public occasions take precedence of all diplomatic representatives. In- ternuncio and delegates enjoy a similar right of prece- dence over all other diplomatic representatives of equal rank. This privilege of papal envoys was ex- pressly recognized by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and is universally observed. Nuncios enjoy the title of "Excellency" and the same special honours as am- bassadors. In addition to their diplomatic position nuncios have an ecclesiastical mission, and possess or- dinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The latter point is especially stated in the "Responsio” of Pius VI to the Rhenish archbishops, and was reaffirmed by Pius IX in a letter to Archbishop Darboy of Paris in 1863, as also in a declaration of the Cardinal Secretary of State Jacobini addressed to Spain, 15 April, 1885. The ample ecclesiastical faculties, granted in the Middle Ages to the legates a latere and other papal envoys, had led to abuses; the Council of Trent, therefore, en- acted that papal envoys (legati a latere, nuncii, guber- natores ecclesiastici, aut alii quarumcumque faculta- tum vigore) were not to impede bishops or to disturb their ordinary jurisdiction nor to proceed against ecclesiastical persons until the bishop had first been applied to and had shown himself negligent (Sess. XXIV., cap. xx de ref.).
Apart from the special faculties in conferring eccle- Biastical benefices and in granting spiritual favours, the nuncios had the power of instituting proceedings and giving decisions in cases of ecclesiastical administra- tion and discipline reserved to the pope. The nuncia- tures had special courts, principally for cases of ap- peal. To-day such a court is attached only to the Nunciature of Spain. In all other points nuncios en- joy essentially the same rights in ecclesiastical mat- ters. They are the representatives of the pope, and as such are the organs through which he exercises his ordinary and immediate supreme jurisdiction. It is their special duty to supervise ecclesiastical adminis- tration, and on this they report to the cardinal sec- retary of state; they grant dispensations in cases reserved to the pope, carry on the process of informa- tion for the nomination of new bishops, give permis- sion for reading forbidden books, and enjoy the privi- lege of granting minor indulgences. In special cases they are delegated for the settlement of important ec- clesiastical affairs. In virtue of their position certain ecclesiastical honours are due to them as laid down in the "Cæremoniale Episcoporum". Pius X introduced a change in the practice hitherto followed with regard to nuncios, so that now they bold their position longer than formerly, and a nuncio of the first class, after his recall, is not regularly raised to the cardinalate.
PIEPER, Zur Entstehungsgesch. der ständigen Nuntiaturen (Frei- burg, 1894); BIAUDET, Les nonciatures apostoliques permanentes jusqu'en 1648 in Annales Academia Scientiarum Fennica (Helsin- ski, 1910); RICHARD, Origines des nonciatures permanentes in Re- vue d'hist, ecclés.. VII (1906), 52-70, 217-238; IDEM. Origines de la nonciature de France in Revue des quest. histor., LXXVIII (1905), 103 sqq. MEISTER, Die Nuntiatur von Neapel im 16. Jahrh. in Hi tor. Jahrb., XIV (1893), 70-82; IDEM, Zur spanischen Nun- tuitur im 16. u. 17. Jahrh. in Rom. Quartalsch., VII (1893), 447– 81; FRIEDENSBURG, Anfänge der Nuntiatur in Deutschland_in Nuntiaturber. aus Deutschland I, part I, xxxviii, sqq.; PIEPER, Die päpstl. Legaten u. Nuntien in Deutschland, Frankreich u. Spanien seil der Mitte des 16. Jahrh., I (Münster, 1897): MAERE, Les origines de la nonciature de Flandre in Revue d'histoire ecclés., VII (1906), 565-84, 805-25); DE HINOYOSA, Los despachos de la Diplo- macia pontificia en España, I (Madrid, 1896); BAUMGARTEN, Der Papst, die Regierung u. Verwaltung der hl. Kirche in Rom (Mün- chen, 1904), 447 sqq.
NUNCIATURE REPORTS, the official reports concern-
ing their entire field of work sent by the papal nuncios
and legates (or their representatives) to the pope
or the cardinal secretary of state. The contents
of these dispatches are in accordance with the com-
mission received by the legate or nuncio. The re-
ports of the nuncios filling permanent nunciatures,
on whom rested the protection of all the interests of the
papacy within their special territory, relate to all the
more important ecclesiastical or political questions
which had any connexion whatever with their com-
mission. The objects of the reports are: (1) to give
the most exact information possible concerning all
political and ecclesiastical occurrences which might be
of importance to the pope or the cardinal secretary of
state; (2) to give exact information concerning the
action the nuncios have taken with respect to such
occurrences; (3) to send news concerning the princes
to whose courts they are accredited, and concerning
the persons who are in personal contact with the
princes, or appear at court on account of political mat-
ters, or in any way have a share in ecclesiastical and
political affairs. In doing this attention is naturally
paid both to the instructions that had been given to
the nuncio before he left for his post, and to the letters
regularly received from the office of the papal secre-
tary of state, from the pope, or from other officials.
Taken in a wider sense, nunciature reports also include
those letters of the nuncios concerning the affairs of
their nunciatures, addressed to cardinals or others hav-
ing high official rank in the Curia. From the first
half of the sixteenth century, when the bureau of the
papal secretary of state was fully developed and the
permanent nunciatures received their ultimate organi-
zation, the reports of the nuncios were sent regularly
(from the middle of the sixteenth century, often
weekly). They were written sometimes in Latin,
sometimes in Italian. If important matters were
treated, especially those concerning which negotia-
tions needed to be carried on in the most secret man-
ner possible, the nuncio employed the cipher given
him before going to this position.
Although the individual dispatches vary greatly in worth, yet, as a whole, the nunciature reports form a very important source from the sixteenth century (es- pecially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- ries) both for the history of the Church and for politi- cal history. Only a very small proportion either of the reports made by papal legates in the second half of the fifteenth century or in the early years of the six- teenth century have been preserved. From the sec- ond decade of the sixteenth century a much greater number survive, and from the middle of this century the reports of individual nuncios frequently exist in unbroken sequence. Most of the manuscript reports are in the Vatican archives, and are classified in six- teen series, according to the nunciatures. The classi- fication does not agree, however, with the present ar- rangement of the nunciatures, the series given being as follows: Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Eng- land, Germany (the imperial nunciature), Cologne, Bavaria, Switzerland, Poland, Savoy, Genoa, Venice, Florence, Naples, and Malta. Individual reports are also in other divisions of the archives. The nuncia- ture reports brought together in the archives of the Vatican show serious gaps, especially for the sixteenth century. The reason is that the diplomatic corre- spondence of the Curia in that era was not systematic- ally brought together and preserved in a papal archive, but was frequently purloined by the copyists, cardi- nal favourites, and their secretaries, just as the letters dispatched from Rome were retained by the nuncios and their heirs, and thus became dispersed to some ex- tent in family archives. For example, the greater part of the nunciature reports pertaining to the reign of Paul III (1534-49) are now in the state archives of Naples, to which they came along with the archives of the Farnese family. Other collections of reports are to be found in various Italian archives. The reports preserved are either the original drafts made by the nuncios themselves, or the original letters drawn up in accordance with these, or copies of the original let- ters. As regards the reports written in cipher, a key can generally be found.
On account of the great historical importance of the reports an effort has been made, since the opening of the Vatican archives for general research, to pub-
